- Speaking as a 27 year old who did transition year and is now a tax payer left paying off the debts incurred by the auld ones – I’m a bit annoyed. How about we take away the vote from them and the travel pass. They obviously made a fuck of it the first time time so why give them a self indulgent second chance.

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38 thoughts on “Some Friends”

How about we remove their unfunded luxurious pensions. Huge age war coming in the future. Most States run benefit systems that are basically a ponzi scheme and with demographics working against that now, there’s going to be fewer and fewer young people paying for more and more of the eldery.

This is the usual response of primitive societies when the crops fail: demonise the old, starve them out. I’m expecting to see accusations of witchcraft any day now.
Small correction to Declan: the old (people over 65) didn’t cause the self-indulgent excesses of the Celtic Tiger; that would have been caused by those now in their forties and fifties.

The elderly are far more responsible for the “self indulgent excesses of the Celtic Tiger” (*as well as voting for Haughey et al, ignoring child abuse etc.) than the transition students whom they are proposing to enslave.

Disagree fundamentally. Its a fantastic opportunity for students do engage in non curricular activities, a lot of students do community activities that have a great impact on their lives. Like many if not all of my peers in school, I spent weeks working in a centre for people with mental disabilities. The opportunity I believe, helped me become a more rounded invidividual and had a lasting impact on the importance of these centres and in understanding a little more about my community and society and the needs of people with disabilities.

Furthmore. for some children, studying will just not be their thing. There are countless examples of school dropouts who became very successful in other aspects. So this opportunity — transition year — allows them to learn about other aspects that might help them with their life. I personally spent plenty of hours studying some things that I never used, but felt that some of the things we did in Transition year had a lasting impact.

Furthermore, students aren’t ready for the leaving cert cycle at 14/15, in part because the junior cert is a relatively tough year for a 13/14 year old.

I whole heartedly agree K. The Transition Year provides a welcome opportunity for students to develop themselves beyond simple rote learning and gives them an extra year to mature before they have to make a decision that may impact their entire lives.

If you are between 25 and 35 as I’d guess most BS readers are, there is no way you will have anything like the level of allowances that the elderly do today. We aren’t really in a position to afford it now and we are even less likely to be in a position to afford it in 40+ years as demographics change and life expectancy increases.

I’m the original annoyed guy here. I’ve only ever missed one election and that was because I was on a Fas work placement in Dublin and I couldn’t get home due to a lack of cash and timing issues.

Personally I even enjoy local council elections – democracy as the “youths” say is totes. However I accept your point as re youth voting – personally I think its more to do with moving around and been at that stage of your life where you don’t have firm roots

Transition year was the most important year in my entire education, and is directly responsible for me getting into and finishing college. Why? Because I was given the space and time to find out what it was I wanted to be.

It’s one of the few genuine successes of the Irish education system. I’m actually proud of it. Proud, no less. How often do you get to say that about something in Ireland?

The important thing is they had an onion on their belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on ‘em. Gimme five bees for a quarter, you’d say. Now where was I… oh yeah. The important thing was that I had an onion tied to my belt, which was the style at the time.